It is much more revealing, more convincing, and altogether more thrilling to tell the story as it emerged, as it began to fall into place, piece by piece, converging tentatively at first, but then with increasing speed, vigor and confidence. This is a simple insight but one with profound consequences.Ĭonvergence is, as Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Weinberg has put it, 'The deepest thing about the universe.' This book does not, however, tell the story by beginning at the beginning and ending at the end. Genetics has been harmonized with linguistics, botany with archaeology, climatology with myth. Astronomy has been augmented by particle physics, psychology has been increasingly aligned with physics, with chemistry and even with economics. Intimate connections between physics and chemistry have been revealed as have the links between quantum chemistry and molecular biology. Various scientific disciplines, despite their very different beginnings, and disparate areas of interest have been coming together over the past 150 years, converging and coalescing, to identify one extraordinary master narrative, one overwhelming interlocking coherent story: the history of the universe. A brilliant history of science over the past 150 years that offers a powerful new argument - that the many disparate scientific branches are converging on the same truths.Ĭonvergence is a history of modern science with an original and significant twist.

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